School shows off its laptop surveillance tactics
"This kid looks like they're editing their MySpace page."
So declares an assistant principal at Intermediate School 339 in the Bronx borough of New York, a "former technology coach" (PDF) named Dan Ackerman (but not to be confused with CNET's Dan Ackerman). You might imagine that he's wandering around a classroom looking over kids' shoulders as they fiddle about on their laptops. You might imagine, then, that storks deliver milk as well as babies.
This remarkable 2009 footage from the PBS show "Frontline," promoted on its site earlier this month and thrust into the limelight on Thursday by the people at Boing Boing, might just make your own moral code offer a boing or two, as you view the apparent normality of a school administrator peeping into his students' lives through software installed on their school-issued laptops.
The entertainment begins at around the 4:30 mark. We watch him watching a girl comb her hair, using her Mac's Photo Booth application as a mirror. He then observes the editing of a MySpace profile page, reportedly via a program called Apple Remote Desktop, marketed as enabling teachers to "pause all of their [students'] screens, give them new instructions, and start them up again when [they're] ready."
Perhaps the most chilling line of the video, especially in the context of this week's revelations at Harriton High School in Pennsylvania--which allegedly used security software to surreptitiously activate a school-issued laptop Webcam when off-campus--is when Ackerman utters these words with almost a chuckle: "They don't even realize that we're watching."
They seem to realize something, though. As Ackerman demonstrates how he "always [likes] to mess with [students] and take a picture" by remote-controlling the Photo Booth software, a girl ducks out of shot.
"Nine times out of 10," Ackerman explains, referring to the moment Photo Booth indicates to the student that a picture is being taken, "they duck out of the way." And on occasion, according to "Frontline" reporter Rachel Dretzin, Ackerman interrupts students' instant-message conversations "with his own message, telling them to get back to work."
I know that technology moves so fast that perhaps, like Google's engineers, we don't stop to wonder about even half the potential consequences that such rapid invention invites. And certainly, on-campus laptop monitoring, as is demonstrated in this "Frontline" footage, is different from off-campus Webcam activation.
But I must confess that if one of my teachers had spied on me during my school days, I might have been sorely tempted to pay him a visit with some rather large, unshaven friends from the local Polish Club--after lunch, you understand.
Chris Matyszczyk is an award-winning creative director who advises major corporations on content creation and marketing. He brings an irreverent, sarcastic, and sometimes ironic voice to the tech world. He is a member of the CNET Blog Network and is not an employee of CNET. 
I know for sure if when i was in middle/high school i knew my teachers and administrators were spying on us we would've been upset and found ways to act out. Kids dont see themselves as such, and they definitely dont like to be treated as such by adults. And spying on students is an act of distrust, which is very offensive.
I did similar things on the desktops in my classroom a long time ago. OTOH, those desktops remained in public, and never left the classroom. Students in class are supposed to be working, after all.
Laptops are a whole different matter entirely, especially once they leave the premises. Once the student is off-campus, that's that - a school district's influences and/or reach over a student stops cold at the school's property line, period.
That is VERY different from the Pennsylvania school that activated a webcam while the student was at home. They weren't even monitoring the desktop screen, they were using the camera as a spy camera.
These two instances are VERY VERY different... hidden camera that no one knows about, vs, the same very public screen that the teacher in a classroom sees (not to mention the students next to that student).
I didn't that you could use a punch card programed computer to spy on someone :)
Nah, they used men in raincoats and trilbies, with newspapers tucked under their arms.
Have a great weekend,
Chris
I remember their hats to more of a fedora or some other slouched broad brim hat.
Back in the early '60s I had a teacher who wore a little mirror on his eyeglasses, kind of like those worn by bicyclists. This was to keep an eye on us when he was facing the chalkboard.
PS -- I'll bet that when Matyszczyk was in school, he was a wuss who couldn't have intimidated an assistant librarian no matter how many unshaven friends he brought with him...
Maybe life is different at Cnet but in the real world people are brought into the boss's office and given warnings when ID finds out they were on Amazon or using IM clients during work hours.
They are expelling, suspending, reporting and having arrested in irons, children as young as six, since they are 'zero tolerant' of the antics of these *&)*__ male students. They are going to do what the parents wont. They know better and will not allow silly american rights interfere with their god given responsibilty to socialize, civilize and otherwise enforce absolute character building protocols on their charges. Sop there!
So snooping into computers supplied by the local coven, often non elected as principals, coaches especially coaches, and teachers with more or less (often less) credentials to teach a subject, is just the latest best thing to keep the mob in line. Their own purity of personal history is a given. Rhode Island is right of course firing the whole shebang, seven with one blow as it were.
If students are to be subject to random survailence, the fact each day to each class must be announced, and the student, even before his parents, should have the absolute right to deny permission. The defense that the school is under public civic authority, and the computers belong to the school, must be denied in law as a defense of this spying tactic. NOr should the TSA new machines to expose the whole human body be a defense and there are limits being imposed as we speak. But people right now know it is there and can decide. My issue with this is less the exposure as WHO are these people who are doing the looking. I know several workers at such sites, and I am ofter shagrined at their vulgarities, rauchous and nasty comments in general, and their conversation as they acorn the public they serve. Those with foreign accents, entrusted with US security, are particularly doubtful. Who are these people, and who are these teachers, in their own lives?
The school system should be purged of these unamerican, even anti-american powers. There are too many nannies with some unelected powers forcing the public down avenues they don't want to go, but don't know how to stop it.
Are the students as well as the travelers subject to back channel insults, ribbald evaluations
From a student.
@gorbud - Zero Tolerance Policies are abhorrent on every level. Don't have a link to provide, but I just recently read a story about a seventh grade girl who had an adderall given to her by another student. She refused the pill, but because she had touched it, that fell under possession in the zero tolerance policy of ther district. She has been suspended for a week. At what point does common sense prevail and people realize that zero tolerance should be taken away and discipline handed out based on severity?
Further, I wonder what the comments would be if the laptops were not monitored and students were using chat to plan mischief or to harass another student. I'm sure the comments would be along the lines of, "Why were they not being monitored?"
The only "chilling" thing here is that this all schools don?t offer laptops.
Even when the student or employee is at home?
We used to be able to see the teacher walking around, not have her appear in our faces from out of the blue.
As for the mischief or harassment spying, does the end really justify the means? That's the same argument for the use of torture. Society is really falling back to the dark ages, except that with the technology of today, they could be much darker, indeed.
I dont know about you.... but I think that could get someone shot
What bothers me is that people don't watch videos or read the original articles. They just play this game of telephone where every re-blog/comment gets more inaccurate than the last.
What happened in the video: the vice principal demonstrated how they make sure the laptops aren't a distraction in class; they can connect to the laptop, view the desktop, and control the mouse; they connected to one where a girl was fixing her hair instead of working; he clicked the "take photo" button in the program she was using; she looked confused, figured it out, went back to work.
When I was in high school (and these kids are in elementary school) the computer were all around the wall and the teacher would walk around behind us and look at our screens to make sure we were working. What's the difference?
How these tools are used is something that needs to be discussed.
Do schools have a right/obligation to know what students (and staff) are going when they use school-owned computers. Yes, of course. Is this "spying?" As long as the school district's policies are clear and well-communicated, this should not be an issue. Students and employees should know that what they do at school/work can be observed, monitored and recorded. This is not a violation of privacy.
Taking a school-owned computer home creates a scenario where privacy could be violated. This should also be a topic of conversation between those that understand the law and anyone that might be affected (everyone that uses a computer connected to the internet).
Welcome to Hitler's United States!
At work, IT departments monitor which site you visit, not your screen or you via webcam. Even universities monitor which site you visit to prevent students from downloading movies.
The level of monitoring shown in this video is unacceptable and exposes students to abuse. Its an Orwellian nightmare. These students are not a security risk. Give them a computer and internet - and they will do, what we all do - surf the net. There has to be a less intrusive way of encouraging them to use the device for educational purposes but this is not it.
CNET has become more and more irresponsible in their reporting and completely distorting the facts. CNET turns non stories into stories, for instance, Apple not releasing Core i5 and Core i7 laptops... The headline says that Apple is late to the scene... but there's no one that says they have to be there. It was a non story that CNET tried to turn into a big issue, just this this school article.
Here's an analogy, if employers monitored the desktop screens of their employee computers from time to time at work, there might be some people upset, but it is no where near the scale of if that same employer were to activate a webcam to monitor the actual employee through the camera while the employee was at home. TWO TOTALLY DIFFERENT THINGS...
IRRESPONSIBLE REPORTING just to make a new story.... it's sad CNET has come to this.
A school installs a screenshot app to take remotely when a piece of their equipment is reported to have been stolen and all of a sudden they're accused of eating babies.
I got to tell you, if they were using it for misappropriate reasons which I might add has YET to be proven, that's one thing.
But simply installing an application to help with recovery of something you own is in every single car, phone, and product that pretty much exists that has a serial number on it. I fail to see the problem here besides hypocrisy of what all the soft parents of today created to begin with.
It's their property, they own it, the kids borrow it, there isn't some guy in a rain coat sitting behind a desk monitoring laptops... And if you think there is, you have some serious neurological issues you need to have looked at because your mind has gotten the best of your judgment.
If you still don't think it was unintentional, why NOT attack an obvious intentional invasion of privacy? Like traffic-light cameras? or maybe GPS systems? or the phone company? Or anyone else who can watch or hear what you're doing 24/7.
Someone hit the nail on the head earlier, and the truth is, it's preparation for the REAL WORLD -- everything else is just blindly defending children.
- by MTGrizzly March 2, 2010 3:02 PM PST
- Politics aside, when do the teachers find time to teach? Do we really need them spending time watching what the students are doing? This seems to me to be a really strong argument against this technology in schools...
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(44 Comments)I mean, without a laptop, students are reduced to having to doodle on notebook paper. Which is something I think is vastly underrated as an artistic medium [flashback to Flounder drawing jet airplanes attacking the Omegas during English class in 'Animal House']...